


Fabric of Recovery

by Humansunshine



Series: WLW Fic Bingo 2019 [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Sharing Clothes, Trans Character, Transgender Author, Trauma Recovery, the fall of the clave, transgender Maia Roberts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 07:29:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19942459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humansunshine/pseuds/Humansunshine
Summary: One day Gretel was there, and they were in love. The next she was gone.





	Fabric of Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second offering for the SH wlw fic bingo! This is meant to fill two squares - angst feast and clothes sharing - for Team Blue! 
> 
> Since it is meant to be an angst feast, there are some heavy themes and moments in this fic. There is a happy/bittersweet ending, but it's not all rainbows and sunflowers.
> 
> Trigger warnings for
> 
> Disassociation/trauma response: Maia is mugged, and panicks because it triggers her memories of what happened with Jordan.
> 
> Death/grief: As in canon, Gretel dies at Valentine's hands. We don't see her die or a depiction of her corpse, but we see Maia's reaction to it, and it's very heavy.
> 
> Battle/murder: Very brief mention of Maia killing some Clave loyalist soldiers.
> 
> Reference to dysphoria in sexual situations: It's mentioned that Maia lays out some 'do's and don'ts' before sleeping with Izzy.

The first time Maia saw Gretel in her clothes was only a few weeks into their relationship. Gretel had to go home to get ready for work, and it was pouring rain outside. The night before had been balmy, and Gretel had met Maia for their date in a cute mini-dress and a denim jacket. 

“Are you sure you won’t need this today?” Gretel asked as Maia handed her the oversized waterproof jacket.

“I’m not planning to go anywhere,” Maia assured her, “it’s my day off, I have studying to do. Besides,” she smiled, adjusting the lapels on Gretel’s collarbones. “You look incredibly cute in my jacket with that dress.”

Gretel smiled warmly at her and went up on her tiptoes for a kiss. “Call me later?” Gretel requested as they pulled away, and Maia nodded. “Alright, see you later.”

“See you later, babe,” Maia murmured, giving her another kiss on the cheek before letting Gretel go, smiling fondly as she tugged the hood up over her white hair. It was tousled after a night of rolling around in bed rather than iron-straight like it usually was, and Maia privately thought that it was incredibly endearing that Gretel was worried about it getting wet when it was already kind of a mess.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Why do you always smell so good?” Maia asked a couple of months later, her face buried in Gretel’s pillow.

Gretel was smiling, puttering around the bedroom putting away the washing that had just come fresh out of the drier. “That reminds me,” she murmured, picking out a t-shirt from the drawer in front of her, “this is for you.”

Maia turned over so Gretel could toss her the shirt, raising her eyebrow. It was a black t-shirt with white lettering that said ‘Killin’ It’ spread across the front.

“It’s been worn a little. I figure you might miss me while I go see my parents, so…”

Maia brought it up to her face and inhaled deeply, humming at the smell of her girlfriend. “That’s so sweet, I love you,” Maia chuckled, her eyes on the t-shirt. She glanced up when the moment of silence stretched out, and realised the moment she saw Gretel’s shocked face that she’d just blurted out a confession. Before she could try and laugh it off, though, Gretel’s face melted into a smile, and she leapt onto the bed. 

“I love you too,” Gretel told her, and Maia giggled, hugging her girlfriend tightly.

~~~~~~~~~~

When Maia managed to get a hold of herself and turn back, she realised that she was nowhere near any of her hidden clothes caches. She hadn’t planned to turn; she’d gotten mugged. When the mugger pulled a gun, Maia turned instinctively, knowing that the average bullet couldn’t hurt her in wolf form. But rather than being afraid of the wolf forming in front of him, the mugger had chased Maia for blocks and blocks, shooting at her hindquarters, yelling about Jesus… Or something. 

Maia had finally lost him, but she didn’t calm down enough to change back until she was a few blocks further… And now suddenly she was twelve blocks from her nearest cache. She’d managed to find a t-shirt hanging out of someone’s window to dry, but she couldn’t walk all the way back home with just a t-shirt on. It wasn’t long enough to completely cover her crotch, and if she ran into some transphobes...

As she spotted a phone box, she dashed over to it and let herself in. She dialled Gretel’s number, making sure that it was reverse charge so that it wouldn’t cut her off halfway through a sentence. Maia squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that Gretel’s phone was charged.

“Hello?” 

“Gretel! It’s me!” Maia told her, so relieved she could cry.

“Maia? Are you okay? What’s going on?” Gretel sounded concerned.

“I got mugged, and I turned. And now I’m miles away from my nearest pack of clothes. I’m, uh…” She squinted out of the scratched glass window at the street sign on the corner, “34th Avenue and Junction Boulevard. Do you have clothes close?” 

“Um, let me think. Where is that?”

“North Corona, I think. Maybe Jackson Heights.” Maia answered, her heart racing. She tried to calm down in the worry that her wolf would come out again, but she was still terrified from the mugging, and the thought of being caught by some transphobes like this was even worse.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I have some clothes hidden there.” Gretel remembered.

Once Gretel had rattled off the location, Maia looked around, trying to figure out which direction the backpack was. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. Thanks.”

“Hey,” Gretel said, “come here, okay? I need to see that you’re safe.”

“I promise,” Maia nodded, “okay I’ve gotta go. See you soon.”

Once Maia had gotten hold of the clothes, it was just a matter of jumping the turnstiles and getting on the subway to head back to Gretel’s place down near the pier. She was still feeling a little uneasy, but being surrounded by Gretel’s smell helped her to calm down as she rode the train. As she was climbing the stairs up towards the street, Maia suddenly felt incredibly tired, and she wondered if the adrenaline was finally leaving her system. Gretel must have been watching for her, because she met Maia on the stairs, holding a blanket. 

“I’m okay,” Maia insisted even as Gretel wrapped the blanket around her.

“No you’re not, you’re shaking.” Gretel said gently. 

Maia looked down at her hands, and sure enough, she was trembling. “What’s wrong with me?” She asked quietly, letting Gretel steer her into the apartment.

“Maia,” Gretel sighed softly, kneeling down in front of her as she sat down on the couch. “You’ve been through hell in the past 5 years. What happened to you back in Jersey, it leaves scars, and I don’t just mean the ones on your neck.”

“You make it sound like I’ve been through active warfare or something,” Maia snorted, though she held the blanket tightly around herself, “I just had an asshole boyfriend, most women-”

“Being forcibly turned into a werewolf and then abandoned is not an experience most women can relate to,” Gretel pointed out. “It was traumatic, and I’m betting that being crept up on by a mugger made those same feelings from back then come to the surface.”

Maia stayed quiet, her throat tightening. “But he didn’t hurt me.”

“No, he didn’t. Your wolf saved you.”

“I think I panicked a little, when I realised I didn’t have clothes… I kept thinking I was gonna be trapped with a gang of transphobes or something. It was so irrational, no-one would have been looking at my crotch.” Maia shook her head, sniffing back tears. Why was she crying?

Gretel reached up to cup Maia’s face in her hands, bringing their foreheads together. “You’re safe now, Maia. Breathe me in. I’m right here. You’re safe.”

Maia whimpered, and began to cry, and Gretel gently moved to sit in her lap, pulling Maia’s face against her chest and cradling her gently.

~~~~~~~~~~

One day Gretel was there, and they were in love. Maia was healing, slowly, her trust in Gretel absolute. Maia knew that Gretel wouldn’t leave her.

The next day, she was gone.

She disappeared off the face of the earth. Maia had seen her in the morning, kissed her goodbye before heading off to work at the Hunter’s Moon. When she came home, Gretel was nowhere to be seen, and her phone was off. Maia gathered as many of Gretel’s t-shirts as she could and brought them to the Jade Wolf in a roll-along suitcase. Luke and the pack had used them to try and catch Gretel’s scent. They’d run around for days looking until Tito had found it. It led them to the harbour, and the smell of blood. 

Maia waited in the Jade Wolf as Luke called the shadowhunters, Gretel’s t-shirts on the table in front of her. She ran her hands over soft cotton, trying desperately to convince herself that Gretel had just given up on her and left town. Even that was better than the thought that Gretel had been hurt.

When Luke came to tell her that the shadowhunters suspected Valentine, she turned. Her claws ripped more than one of the t-shirts on accident as she scrambled to get out of the restaurant. For two days she hid in warehouses and alleys, not daring to change back. Tatters of Gretel’s clothes clung to her claws, and she buried her nose in them, hoping that somehow Valentine would take her too.

~~~~~~~~~~

When she looked back at the days after Gretel’s body was found, Maia’s memories were fuzzy. Life seemed to dim. The only thing she remembered clearly was the urgent, insistent rage as she chased Jace Herondale across the city. The rage glowed red hot in her heart as everything else turned to grey. Only after the shadowhunter was arrested did she return to Gretel’s flat. She climbed under the crumpled covers and cried until she passed out, smothered in Gretel’s scent for the last time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Isabelle Lightwood was the only shadowhunter who checked up on Maia once Valentine was dead. By then, Maia had gone back to work. The pain of Gretel’s loss had gone numb with time, but Maia still found herself reaching for Gretel’s leather jacket every morning despite the fact that winter was long since over. Isabelle came by the Hunter’s Moon one afternoon to ask if there was anything that her brother, the new Head of the Institute, could do for her. 

“You’re considered one of Valentine’s victims,” Isabelle told her softly. “We know that Gretel was-”

“I’d rather not talk about her,” Maia replied, leaving out the ‘with you’. It was implied. 

Isabelle nodded, swallowing hard. “I understand. I hope that you take a little comfort in the knowledge that he’ll never hurt anyone again.” 

“It’s a little too late for that,” Maia pointed out, her voice tired rather than unkind. 

“I know, I’m sorry. I just-”

“Is it true that Jace Herondale helped to kill him?” Maia asked, and Isabelle licked her lips. Her red lipstick didn’t budge. 

“He was at the lake when Valentine died,” Isabelle explained, “but I wasn’t there. I think Clary struck the killing blow, at least that’s what I understand to be true.”

“But…” Maia shrugged one shoulder, “Herondale turned out to be… Valentine’s enemy?” 

“Yes, he was.” Isabelle confirmed, “he fought just as hard as any of us to bring Valentine down. He was taken against his will, held as a prisoner like…”

“Like Gretel,” Maia murmured, her eyebrows furrowing. Isabelle was quiet for a moment, looking at Maia with such immense sympathy that it made Maia want to cry. “Thank you for reaching out. It’s appreciated.”

“Any time. Anything you need, Maia. I mean it. Even if all you need is someone to be there to listen when you need to vent or yell.” Isabelle was being completely sincere, Maia could see it in her eyes. Maia appreciated it, even if she wasn’t ready to trust a shadowhunter yet.

“There is something you can do,” Maia told her.

Isabelle hopped up on the bar stool next to her. “What is it?” 

“I want…” Maia thought for a moment about the way to put her desire into words. “I want to understand why. And how. None of it makes sense. Valentine was a racist, I figured that much, but… How did they let it happen? How are the Clave going to stop this from happening again? I need to know that this is the end. That it’s over.”

Isabelle looked directly into Maia’s eyes, a sad frown on her face. “I don’t want to lie to you, Maia. I won’t sit here and give you some generic speech about how the Clave condemn his actions. You know, and I know, that the Clave has racism deeply, deeply ingrained into its society. I can’t tell you that this is the end of that. I wish that I could. More than anything, I want to promise you that nothing like this will ever happen again, but until the Clave is brought down…”

“Brought down?” Maia blurted out, her eyebrows rising. “By who?” 

“Alec is the Head of the Institute now. We’re… Exploring our options.” Isabelle leaned forward to tell her. 

Maia shook her head. “You must have lost your minds.”

“Maybe,” Isabelle smiled faintly. “But I think it’s time that we built a society for the entire shadow world, don’t you?” 

“I mean… Yeah,” Maia admitted, Izzy’s smile catching. “But…”

“But what?” 

Maia shrugged, leaning forward a little. “You’d better not be thinking about kicking Clave ass without me.” 

Isabelle snorted out a laugh, and shook her head lightly.

~~~~~~~~~~

Maia and Izzy kissed for the first time in the ruins of Alicante. 

After a battle that had lasted days, and huge losses on both sides, Maia found an exhausted Izzy being held by five Clave loyalists in a crumbling tower. They were no match for a werewolf, and once the last one was dead, Maia crossed the room and changed back to her human form, kneeling next to the bruised, half-conscious shadowhunter. 

“Iz,” Maia murmured, snatching a stele from one of the dead loyalists, “here. You need a healing rune.”

“You saved me,” Izzy blinked up at her with those beautiful brown eyes, her eyebrows furrowed. Not for a moment did she glance down at Maia’s naked body. “Why?”

Maia swallowed hard. “Because you gave me hope when I needed it.”

As the healing rune glowed on Izzy’s skin, she sat up a little, the tiredness fading from her face. “Maia…” Her eyes flicked down to Maia’s mouth, and Maia surged forward, taking Izzy’s face in her hands and kissing her deep. Izzy’s fingers found Maia’s waist, and hauled her closer, sighing into the kiss. “Maia…”

“What?” She whispered, her heart aching with the desire to get closer, to plaster their bodies together and never let go. “What is it?” 

Izzy moved her head to the side a little, licking her own lower lip and revelling in the way that it tingled, “I want you, and not just for tonight. I want you… For real. Always.”

“Well, good,” Maia huffed, her thumb stroking Izzy’s cheek, “because I don’t want to go back to life without you and your chaos.”

Izzy giggled. “No more chaos, the Clave is dead.”

“I’ll believe that you’re retiring from chaos when I see it,” Maia teased, meeting Izzy’s eyes with a smile. Izzy shrugged sheepishly, and Maia giggled, shaking her head as she went in for another kiss.

“Izzy?!” Alec called, his voice desperate and distraught, somewhere outside the tower, “Isabelle?!”

“I’ve got her!” Maia shouted back, “she’s okay!”

“Here,” Izzy got to her feet, taking off her thigh-length jacket, “take this.”

Maia quickly put the jacket on and buttoned it up, Izzy’s scent washing over her. The freshness of it struck Maia, so different to the deep woody smell that Gretel’s clothes had had. She realised that despite the differences between Izzy’s and Gretel’s, she took comfort from the citrusy smell of Izzy as she had from Gretel. 

As Izzy rushed to hug her brother, Maia wondered if perhaps she’d finally found a new home.

~~~~~~~~~~

It took a few weeks and half a dozen dates for Maia to invite Izzy up to her flat. When they got up there, Maia was surprised to find that she wasn’t nervous having the ‘do’s and don’ts’ conversation with Izzy. She knew that Izzy would respect her wishes about what she did and didn’t want to be touched; for once she wasn’t afraid of being turned away. Sex had always been something of a minefield for her. Once the rules had been laid out, it was great, but getting to that point had always been a source of anxiety.

Izzy listened carefully, and asked a couple of questions to clarify a few things, and Maia was about to ask if she’d totally ruined the mood for the night when Izzy asked her final question. 

“So do you feel comfortable…? Now?” 

Maia’s eyebrows rose a little, her cheeks going a little red. “Yes. You still want to?” 

Izzy’s face was a little pink too. “Is that creepy of me?”

“No,” Maia insisted, shaking her head. “I want to… Too.” 

“Good,” Izzy said, licking her lips as she leaned in, eyes flicking between Maia’s eyes and her lips.

Maia grinned and pounced.

Afterwards, they both found themselves lying on their backs on the bedroom floor, panting up at the ceiling. Izzy glanced over at Maia and caught her eyes, and the both of them started giggling.

“That was…”

“Yeah,” Maia sighed, a little shiver running down her spine. “Yeah, god… Yeah.”

Izzy sat up, and groaned happily. She opened the nearest drawer and grabbed a clean t-shirt. Maia closed her eyes again, revelling in the feeling of being truly close to someone. It felt like someone had finally undimmed the lights shining on her life. It was almost as if she was seeing colour for the first time since Gretel died. 

“Maia? You okay? I didn’t actually fuck your brains out, did I?” Izzy teased, and Maia giggled, sitting up to look at her girlfriend. 

Her breath caught in her throat as she saw what Izzy was wearing. A black shirt with ‘Killin’ It’ written across it in white. Izzy’s eyebrows furrowed, and she fidgeted a little. “Should I not…?”

“No,” Maia assured her, holding up her hand, “it… It looks good on you.”


End file.
